The Council has spoken, the votes have been cast and the results are in for this week’s Watcher’s Council match-up.

The war between Hamas and Israel in Gaza has been very much in the headlines and recently something occurred that is unprecedented in America’s relationship with the Jewish State. This week’s winner, Joshuapundit’sObama Betrays Israel In A Last Ditch Effort To Save Hamas is my chronicling of that event and what it means. Here’s a slice:

President Barack Obama took some time off the golf course to call Israeli PM Netanyahu and demand an immediate, unconditional ceasefire in Gaza.In a statement the White House put it this way:

“The President made clear the strategic imperative of instituting an immediate, unconditional humanitarian ceasefire that ends hostilities now and leads to a permanent cessation of hostilities based on the November 2012 ceasefire agreement. The President reaffirmed the United States’ support for Egypt’s initiative, as well as regional and international coordination to end hostilities.”

Horse manure.

What happened is this; Secretary Kerry had originally told the Israelis that any ceasefire would ultimately entail Hamas disarming, but that for now what he was looking for was to implement the Egyptian proposal, which called for a ceasefire but allowed the IDF to stay in position and refused to recognize any of Hamas’ demands, which involved an IDF withdrawal and the opening of the Israeli-Egyptian blockade, put in place to stop Hamas from obtaining heavy weapons from Iran.

Then Kerry tried to bypass the Egyptians and instead came up with a brand new proposal using Muslim Brotherhood friendly Qatar, who funds Hamas, and the anti-Semitic Islamist government of Turkey as intermediaries.The trio met in Paris, a city where John Kerry has had experience orchestrating betrayal before.

That new proposal was very different from what Kerry had told the Israelis only a day or two earlier. As one of my notorious Lil’ Birdies told me directly, it recognized Hamas’ position as the ruler of the Gaza Strip, promised Hamas millions in aid and ‘reconstruction’ money ($47 million from the Obama Administration and $48 million from Qatar alone) and made no demands on Hamas as far as any demilitarization. Their rockets, tunnels and other weaponry would be allowed to remain in place. The IDF would have to withdraw, and the Rafah crossings and the Israeli Egyptian blockade would be lifted. Even worse, the wording of the proposal put Israel and Hamas on the same level, with no difference between the two.

This ridiculous proposal was unanimously rejected by Israel’s security cabinet, even the most dovish members. They were literally shocked by this duplicity.

This was on Friday. The call from Barack Hussein Obama to Binyamin Netanyahu came today.

In his call to Netanyahu, Obama spoke of the need to enact “a sustainable ceasefire that both allows Palestinians in Gaza to lead normal lives and addresses Gaza’s long-term development and economic needs, while strengthening the Palestinian Authority.” He said that, ultimately, “any lasting solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict must ensure the disarmament of terrorist groups and the demilitarization of Gaza.”

So in other words, Hamas is to be rewarded, even though they were the aggressors, even though they are a terrorist group, even after the entire world has seen where that money goes. And the ‘Palestinian Authority’ which Hamas is now part of? That has to strengthened. Maybe, with some Obama funded ‘strengthening,’ Hamas and their Fatah partners might have better luck next time attacking Israel and killing Jews…

The story the White House is putting out now, of course, is that the leaked proposal was ‘just a draft’, accompanied by the usual verbiage by this president of his commitment to Israel’s security. Virtually no one in Israel believes that now.

Among other things, both Hamas leader Khalid Masha’al and Hamas PM Ismail Haniyeh have already said that demilitarization will not happen, and both the president and John Kerry knew it. That why the so called ‘draft’ made no mention of it.In fact Hamas has already used a nice chunk of its ‘humanitarian aid’ money to purchase replacements for its missile arsenal from North Korea, which are en route.That’s something else the president and our Secretary of State had to be aware of too.

Even worse, Obama is trying to hold the safety of Israel’s population hostage. The Iron Dome missile defense system has been key to limiting Israeli civilian casualties.It was developed by Israel’s Rafael, but as part of the quid pro quo for doing some of the funding as a joint weapons project, the U.S. demanded that while the system itself could be produced by Israel, the missiles themselves would be produced in America, and those are made by Raytheon.

At this point, Israel has used up a significant part of its stocks and had asked America for a resupply. Congress almost unanimously authorized the funds. But then Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, in a heartless and nasty maneuver that had to come straight from the White House attached it to the $3.7 billion the president wants to fund amnesty for illegal aliens. The Senate Republicans as I write this are attempting to write up a separate bill to bring to the floor, but it’s not certain Harry Reid will even allow it to come to a vote in the event the legislation gets out of committee. And then, even if it passes, it has to go back to the House and be signed by the president, all of which could take a very long time, especially with the president’s 18 day luxury vacay at Martha’s Vineyard coming up.

I obviously didn’t hear the phone call between Netanyahu and Obama, but I would bet my dollar to your dime the subject came up, and that it was made plain to Netanyahu that unless he accedes to Kerry and Obama’s demands and enables Hamas to rebuild, Israel might not get those Iron Dome missiles for awhile.

And of course, there’s almost certainly another motivation for President Obama here. The biggest beneficiary of the current turmoil in Gaza is none other than Iran,because it takes the eyes of the world off the West’s craven caving in on the July 2oth deadline to resolve Iran’s rogue nuclear weapons program. Not only did the Iranians get another four months of ‘negotiations’ while the centrifuges spin, they got appeased for their trouble with a badly needed $2.5 billion bribe in the bargain.

President Obama realizes that like the Saudis, Egypt and the Emirates, Israel was appalled by this appeasement. And he knows that Netanyahu has his eye very much on that situation.In the president’s view, it probably works much better for him if Israel still has to deal with a military threat to the south as well as from Iran’s proxy Hezbollah in the north rather than to see Hamas defeated and Israel perhaps free to think about doing something about the Iranian threat itself.

In our non-Council category, the winner was Fred Maroun – What Do Israel’s Critics Really Want? submitted by Simply Jews. Here, an Arab blogger asks and answers the simple and direct question in a simple and direct way. Do read it.

See you next week! Don’t forget to tune in on Monday AM for this week’s Watcher’s Forum, as the Council and their invited guests take apart one of the provocative issues of the day and weigh in… don’t you dare miss it. And don’t forget to like us on Facebook and follow us Twitter… ’cause we’re cool like that!